A Short Story

Hope you all loved the sunshine this weekend! Summer is (dare I say it) finally here and I feel like I can start putting together my summer wardrobe, even if I don’t get to wear it all the time in London (but fingers crossed I do.) And if there is one thing I am absolutely loving at the moment, which I often think gets overlooked, it is a pair of shorts. I love a bit of a tomboy look and denim shorts are the obvious choice when it comes to shorts but I found my Cecilie Copenhagen shorts from last year in my closet yesterday and it reminded me how much I love printed shorts too. They definitely look smarter than denim shorts and there are some great prints out there at the moment. And the thing with shorts is that you can kind of get away with them being short. Whenever I wear a short skirt I always feel it makes me look like I am trying to be 18 again and it just looks SO dressed up whereas shorts are casual but you still get to show off your summer pins! So I have put together my favourite printed shorts out there at the moment both highstreet and designer – shop below. And check out Cecilie Copenhagen – it was a huge hit last summer but I love it just as much again this summer. The pieces are affordable, comfortable and add a little slice of cool to any look.

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On another note I have to share with you what we did this weekend. We sleep trained Mila using the Ferber method. Mila has always been a good sleeper but somewhere along the line recently we fell off track a bit. She had been going through some kind of regression and although she went to sleep easily in her own room (or next to me and then I lifted her into her cot and she carried on sleeping) she all of a sudden started waking up in the middle of the night again. And when I say she went to sleep easily it still meant that I had to stroke her and give her a dummy and stay with her until she fell asleep. That ultimately I was putting her to sleep. Which I LOVED doing but it also meant that she became dependant on me being there and associated being able to sleep with being with me. We had bought a travel cot after our Dubai/Oman trip so we recently decided that instead of having her in her own room we would put her to sleep at the foot of our bed in her travel cot and at least that way if she woke up at night we could easily soothe her back to sleep. But that quickly turned into us lifting her into our bed and co-sleeping with her which is something that I had always said I would NEVER EVER do! But when you are tired its very easy to slip off track. I always thought I would be a strict mother and in some ways I am but in others I am such a softie and the one thing I could never bring myself to do was leave Mila to cry. Whenever she cried I would run to her and soothe her. Especially when I knew that she would easily go back to sleep the second she was next to me. Anyways last week my husband and I both decided that we have to bite the bullet and do something about this as neither of us were getting a good nights sleep and she is now almost 11 months. I had been speaking to one of my followers and she told me that she was using the Ferber method with her daughter and that it worked like a charm. I had heard about it and knew the basics but up until now I just wasn’t ready to let Mila cry it out. But we both decided that it was time we got our sleep back. For good. I wanted to feel refreshed and ready for the day and I was willing to do whatever it took. Ever since I became pregnant with Mila I have LOVED mornings. Its when I am most efficient and full of energy. And I wanted that feeling back. So on Saturday night we started our sleep training.

And here’s how it went down. It was SO hard in the beginning. For anyone who isn’t familiar with this method, you basically let your baby cry it out starting with small intervals and increasing them over time. And when you go into the room after the interval is over you don’t pick up your baby or do anything other than give them some strokes to reassure them that they are safe and you are there. But then you leave the room again. The first 3 minutes feels like its never ending and I was on the verge of tears all the time hearing her cries. But you quickly realise that they aren’t crying because something is actually wrong. They are just crying because they want to be soothed. And yes its hard and I felt guilty and like a horrible person but at the end of the day I want her to be independent and I certainly don’t want her sleeping in our bed years from now so I know its good for all of us long term. After 3 minutes I went in and gave her some strokes but didnt pick her up or change her position or give her a dummy. Her dummy is in the cot with her and at almost 11 months she is more than capable of putting it in herself if she needs it so I absolutely don’t offer it to her. I left the room and again she cried and this time I had to wait 5 minutes. And the next time 10. And then 10 again. The first night it took a total of 32 minutes to get her to sleep. And then she woke up again in the night and it took less time but still some crying to get her to put herself to sleep. Last night it took less time already at bedtime (around 25 minutes) but then she slept all the way through the night from 7-6:30am just waking once and putting herself straight back to sleep within minutes (without us having to interfere at all.) I can give a full update next week but honestly I feel like a new woman this morning! I have SO much energy and I just cant believe I didn’t do this sooner. We have a camera in her room and the hardest part was actually watching her when she stopped crying just sitting in the cot putting her dummy in her mouth and wondering why on earth we had left her. We both sat and watched the monitor for the entire time until she had put herself to sleep both feeling so sad for her! But she did it. And this morning I woke up at 6:30am and couldn’t believe she wasn’t yet awake and I ran downstairs as fast as I could I missed her SO much and just as I got to the door of her nursery I saw that she had woken up and was stretching. And I took her into my arms and rushed back upstairs and we all had 30 mins of morning cuddles. I wanted to share that because if you haven’t tried it and you have a baby that has regressed or hasn’t slept from the beginning then PLEASE GIVE IT A TRY! The next time I have a baby I am doing it as soon as I can (5 months is the earliest they say you should do it as it can be bad for their development before that.) Its an absolute game changer. xx

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The Fashion Bug Blog was created by Laura Wills in early 2015 as a way to express herself both through her writing and her personal style. Her husband calls her Bug and that's where the name comes from. The blog focuses on fashion, travel and more recently family as Laura became a mother to Mila in the summer of 2016 and is due with her second girl at the end of this year.

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